YOU SHOULDN’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER. BUT IT’S HARDto not draw conclusions about the new 610-page design tome

Marc Newson from Taschen. The bladed yellow graphic of the
designer’s $7,500 Sintered Damask Knife all but screams: Expect
sharp insights into the archives of a cutting-edge designer. Do
that. Just don’t ask the Aussie-born, London-based Newson about
any implied symbolism.

“I haven’t thought too much about what people might think
and the connotations of a knife, but I’m not too concerned,
really,” says Newson. “I was just happy to find a cover I liked. I
didn’t want it to be a literal representation of anything that’s well
known. That’s instantly cliché.

Cliché is all but a foreign concept to anyone who’s followed
Newson’s career over the past quarter century. Whether it’s
hammering—and riveting—sheet aluminum for months into his
auction-shattering Lockheed Lounge, upending Detroit’s group
think with his Ford 021C concept car, or intuiting optimal sub-orbital digs for Astrium’s Spaceplane, this self-described “gun for
hire” is constantly shifting the paradigm.